Behringer To Clone The Oberheim OB-Xa, the UB-Xa

Uli Behringer has officially announced, via Gearslutz, that BEHRINGER will be creating a clone of the esteemed Oberheim OB-Xa, the UB-Xa. Details surrounding its release date and price have yet to be known.

An excerpt from Behringer’s announcement:

“When it comes to poly-synths the overwhelming request is a rebirth of the Oberheim OB-Xa.

Today I officially announce that we have decided that we will develop and produce an authentic OB-Xa clone which we call the UB-Xa. As you can imagine, this is a very complex and time-consuming project and at this stage we won’t be able to tell you when the instrument will be available in the market or what it will cost.

Since this is more a labor of love than a commercially viable project, our engineers can’t work fulltime on this synth and will use some of their free time, hence the project will likely take more than 12 months.
Most importantly, our goal is to make it an absolute authentic sounding instrument and offer it at a truly affordable price – but you know this already.

Because of its high complexity, we have assigned this project to our most experienced team which is the Midas team in Manchester, UK. These synth nuts and super-smart engineers – under the leadership of Pete and Rob – were also the ones who developed the successful DeepMind12.

So what’s next?
In around one week from now, Pete and Rob will post our first video and share some thoughts with you. Our intention is to not only post videos on a regular basis but also write articles and publish them on our social media pages so you can follow this project.
Now that we have decided on the project, next is the discussion around the basic concept, the feature set and also the building blocks including potential component choices. In the near future we will be able to show you the first “bread boards” of the sound engine and hopefully let you hear some sound samples.
Next will be PCB and mechanical designs, followed by hand- and tool made samples. And then of course we will be sharing the exciting mass production where we will be showing the production setup and testing plus quality control processes. And if you’re not yet bored by then, we can also show you the packaging and shipping process.

The team in Manchester and I are very excited about this project and we hope that many of you will chime in and participate.

And one more thing – once we’re nearing shipping, we will be raffling off some free units among you as a token of appreciation.

May the fun begin☺”

You can follow BEHRINGER’s Facebook page to stay up to date with the UB-Xa’s developments.